


that perches in the soul

by azurish



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, COULSON LIVES!, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 06:00:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azurish/pseuds/azurish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He put down the glass and rummaged around in his jacket pockets for a moment before producing a handful of cards.  Phil recognized them immediately, of course; one had even been a gift from Nick, years and years ago.  Then Nick fanned them out before him and he saw the streaks of crimson brown, flaking away in places, splashed across the faded colors.<br/>“Oh,” Phil said, or perhaps the word just escaped on a too-loud exhale.  “Oh.”</p><p>There was a difference between being a good man and doing the right thing, sometimes.  Nick just wasn't sure if his relationship with Phil was an acceptable sacrifice, and he wasn't sure whether he dared to hope any more.  A conversation in a hospital after the Battle of Manhattan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	that perches in the soul

            Nick Fury was not a good man.  He knew that, the same way he knew dozens of far more important state secrets and an entire arsenal’s worth of blackmail material about everyone who mattered.  He knew exactly how many men he’d killed, how many he’d lost, how many he’d sacrificed, how many he’d _broken_.  He entertained no illusions about the quality of his soul.

            So he was, quite honestly, struck _speechless_ by the comm. call he received right after the Battle of Manhattan, because what had he ever done to deserve something like this?

            “Director Fury?”

            He raised a hand to his ear.  Even though he knew how it worked, he still couldn’t quite get used to it.  He’d learn to hide the tic if it ever mattered, but until then …

            “What have you got for me?”

            “It’s Agent Coulson, sir.  The medics all seem kind of stunned – I mean, they didn’t think that he even –”

            “Yes, _what_?” Nick cut off the babbling young voice far more harshly than he probably should have.  They were all pretty rattled right now – between narrowly averting the destruction of Manhattan via alien army and narrowly averting the destruction of Manhattan via nuclear strike, everyone’s nerves were completely worn through.  But that first sentence – well.  Hope hurt.  Nick hated the helplessness of hope and the pain of disappointment ferociously, and _still_ it bit into him, held onto him, wouldn’t let him go even when he’d seen Phil’s corpse himself.  There was no conceivable god that would ever swoop in at the last moment and defy the odds for _Nick Fury_ , of all people, and yet still, he hoped.

            “They succeeded in – uh, they called it, um, jumpstarting his heart.  Sir.  His vitals have stabilized.  He still hasn’t regained consciousness, but his heart’s been beating for, for nearly half an hour now, sir.”

            Nick took a full step in the direction of the medbay before he reined himself in.  No.  He didn’t have time now.  He needed to – he needed to talk to some of his allies on the Council individually, he needed to supervise the debriefing of Barton and Romanoff, he needed to remain on deck to boost morale, he needed to be the rock his soldiers needed right now.  (And Phil wasn’t even awake.  What – did he think he’d go sit by his bedside, like some worried spouse?  That wasn’t what they _did_.)

            Instead, he raised a hand to his headset again and said, “Keep me informed of any future developments.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            Then he turned back to his bridge and had to focus, to look, to see with his one good eye what needed to be done.  And he tried to force down that – thing, fluttering in his heart, terrible and delicate and impossibly still alive within him.

 

 

            Phil woke up to the sound of monitors beeping steadily, which, depressingly enough, was pretty par for the course for the last decade or two.  Nick wasn’t there, at first, and then suddenly, he was.

            The room was anonymous.  It was small, and nondescript, and white, and mostly _quiet_.  No telltale quiet whirr of engines in the background or occasional announcement over the helicarrier intercomm.

            So he’d been unconscious long enough for the ship to have landed, all right.  And if Nick was here – if Nick was here, they must have won.  They’d survived.  Nick had survived.  _He_ had survived.

            “Loki?” he asked, his voice a thin croak.

            Before he answered, Nick poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the metal hospital table by his bedside.  Phil struggled to lift his head and neck up, wincing as he felt the telltale pull of new stitches at both his back and his chest.  A moment later, a sharp, lancing pain followed, the ache stabbing right through him like a knife, and with a shocked huff he fell back – but one of Nick’s hands was there, cradling his head, gentling his fall.  His fingers – huge, rough, scarred – cupped the back of his head.  His palm was warm and dry where it brushed against his skin through the short bristles of his hair.  The gun calluses on Nick’s little finger caught against the skin of his neck.  He tried to concentrate on that sensation, instead of the cold shock of pain in his chest and the memories flickering around the edges of his vision that threatened to rise to the surface.  (He could feel the ghost of that blade cutting through him like butter, the freezing metal sliding easily into his body, and see the point of that curved blade jutting out _from his chest_ like some impossible nightmare –)

            Nick brought the cup to his mouth and the rim bumped against his lips.  After a moment, Phil made eye contact, opened his mouth, and drank.

            “Loki’s been neutralized.  The details will have to wait until you’re well enough to be properly debriefed, but, long story short, he brought an alien army to Manhattan.  The Avengers stopped him.”

            “Then I was right, yeah?”  Phil tried for a smile.  “My – death was the push they needed.”

            Nick closed his eyes for a moment.  He looked _old_ , the hard lines around his mouth too deep and the worried wrinkles on his forehead apparently permanent.  “Yeah.  Yeah, you were right.”  Then he sighed.

            He put down the glass and rummaged around in his jacket pockets for a moment before producing a handful of cards.  Phil recognized them immediately, of course; one had even been a gift from Nick, years and years ago.  Then Nick fanned them out before him and he saw the streaks of crimson brown, flaking away in places, splashed across the faded colors.

            “Oh,” Phil said, or perhaps the word just escaped on a too-loud exhale.  “Oh.”

            “Yeah.”

            They didn’t make eye contact for a while.  Instead they just sat there – Phil staring blankly up at the white ceiling, Fury’s eye still trained on the cards.  The hospital monitors beeped away steadily.  Nick’s hand was still holding Phil’s head upright, and the tableau seemed even more precariously balanced in the near-silence.

            Finally, something small shut down in Nick’s expression and he nodded infinitesimally.  He drew the cards together with one hand, began to lower Phil’s head toward the pillow, and started to stand.

            With a sudden, strenuous effort, Phil’s hand shot out and curled around Nick’s, around the cards.  Nick froze.  Froze as if he refused to believe this, as if he hadn’t dared hope that Phil would _stop_ him.  Phil caught his breath carefully, and then he spoke.

            “Boss.  Nick.  Don’t – it’s just exactly what I did.  You were motivating them to fight.  You did it any way you could; you put everything you had behind it.  Don’t beat yourself up over it, OK?  They stopped Loki, and you saved Manhattan.”

            Nick nodded and then deflated slightly, sliding back into his seat, adjusting his grip on Phil.  Phil’s heartbeat pulsed through his jugular veins and fluttered against Nick’s palm.

            “You know I was – upset.”  From anyone else, it would have been a question – “You do know I was upset, right?” – but Nick made it a statement, his voice hard and unflinching, even when the words seemed torn out of him.  “But I had to –”

            “Yeah.”  Phil paused before trying on another smile.  And maybe it was just that the tension in the room had decreased exponentially, but this time, it felt nearly normal.  “Saving the world comes first for both of us, eh?”

            One of Nick’s rare, true smiles flashed into existence.  “Seems like that.”  And he forced himself to continue, “I’m glad you’re all right.  Didn’t think you were going to pull through this time, Phil.”

            It took effort, but Phil managed an emphatic disparaging snort.  “Like I’d let that petulant bastard of a god win.”

            A flickering, careful grin this time.  Phil savored it while it lasted, smiled back, encouraged him.

            Eventually, Nick reluctantly disentangled their hands and slid the cards back into his jacket.  “Mind if I keep these for now?” Nick asked.

            The cards had been far more worn than they’d been before, even underneath the blood, Phil realized.  It was as if someone had been holding them, occasionally looking at them, fiddling with them, worrying at them – “Sure, of course,” was all Phil said.

            “Thank you.”

            Then Nick stood and slowly, carefully lowered Phil’s head back to the pillow.  He grimaced.  “Manhattan’s been – well, not totaled, but it’s pretty damn ugly right now.  I have to go deal with some of the clean-up operations.  They can’t really spare me for long,” he added, a comment Phil translated as “They can’t really spare me at all.”

            But he’d come, because as long as the world wasn’t ending, Nick Fury _would_ come for him.  The world came first, but that was about it.  Even if Nick was afraid of how his actions would be received – not that he’d ever admit it – he would come.

            “No problem,” Phil said.  “Go – go get back to directoring.  I don’t need to be mother-henned.” Nick raised an eyebrow, but Phil just smiled softly.  “I’ll see you soon.”

            “Yeah, I’ll be back.”  Nick ran a set of rough fingertips along the side of Phil’s face and then withdrew his hand entirely.  “Soon.  Try to rest until then.”

            “The sooner I can get out of here, the better,” said Phil.

            “Sooner you can come home, the better,” Nick echoed.  He paused in the doorway.

            “It really is all right.  I know – of course, I’ve known from the beginning, it’s the kind of man you are.  You do the right thing, Nick.  You know I love you.  Love you for that, even.”

            Nick nodded.  “Yeah.  Yeah.  I’m glad you’re all right, and I love you, yeah.”  Phil had heard him say that before, of course, but that didn’t mean it didn’t warm him right through every time.

            And then Nick disappeared out into the hallway.  Phil smiled after him.

**Author's Note:**

> Title, of course, from Emily Dickinson's ""Hope" is the thing with feathers". (I think Nick might object to her assertion that hope never demands a crumb from us, but then, Phil might disagree.)  
> Posting this before Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. josses (quite literally ;)) my Phil survival headcanons.  
> Comments make me a really happy author? :)


End file.
